Workers at the Córrego do Feijão iron ore mine were on their lunch break on January 25 2019 when a dam at the site, in the rolling hills of Minas Gerais, ruptured and collapsed. This unleashed a tidal wave of industrial waste that killed 270 people — the majority mine employees and contractors. Mud swamped a 5km tract of land in front of the dam, while rivers dozens of kilometres away were polluted.
Vicente Mello, a vice-president with environmental services group Aecom, which is auditing the safety of Brazilian mining dams, says legislators were able to move quickly with the 2019 law because discussions had already taken place following a separate dam collapse in 2015 in the nearby Mariana township. That disaster killed 19. “What Brumadinho did was to say: ‘Listen, this is bigger than just one site, this is a larger issue’,” says Mello.